It has a lot to do with the unprecedented improvement in material well-being in certain parts of the world, namely the colonizer nations and a handful of successful colonized ones. The majority of former-colony states are still struggling, most with the luxuries, many with the essentials, a few with even managing a stable state.
The hard truth is the people in the developed world have only had it as good as they do because so many in the developing one have gone without to a frankly criminal degree for far too long. And they continue to be exploited. If you don't believe me look the shipbreaking yards where barefoot Bangladeshi work with plasma cutters to hack up ships beached there, or the electronic scrap heaps where people set fire to piles of e-waste to salvage the metals within, on and on. There are hundreds if not thousands of these examples where the West continues dominating the global south in clear, unmistakable ways, and precious few where the relationship goes the other way.
As someone who has written extensively on this topic, both on the internet and not, it is frankly just offensive to see this viewpoint shared as though it's serious. Colonialism benefited colonial nations, because of course it did. It wouldn't have been done if it wasn't beneficial. To the colonized it represents an entire category of scars: some on their infrastructure, some on their economies, a lot on the places in which they live, a few on their actual bodies to this day, and many simply as a gigantic, unforgettable one across their collective souls.
Poverty isn't necessarily exploitation. The situation of Bangladesh would not be improved if every wealthier nation was suddenly sucked into the sea. In fact, the situation of Bangladesh would become considerably worse.
Bangladesh has grown rapidly by selling clothing to rich countries, and through the work of NGOs. Supposing we put a forcible stop to this "exploitation" by placing sanctions on Bangladesh, so no one can trade with it, and kicking out all of the NGOs. Bangladesh becomes much poorer.
>Colonialism benefited colonial nations, because of course it did. It wouldn't have been done if it wasn't beneficial.
According to an old European history textbook I read: Once you take into account the costs of conquest, infrastructure, and administration, plus the opportunity for colonial administrators to take a cut on the sly (since the monarch was thousands of miles away), colonies weren't profitable on net. Supposedly the Brits did colonialism first, and other European countries followed in Britain's footsteps because "that's what an industrialized nation does".
Do you believe Putin's invasion of Ukraine makes economic sense? I don't think that's what motivates him.
The invention of the map might be the deadliest invention in history. To paraphrase Carl Sagan: "Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could momentarily color a small additional part of their map with their nation's color."
>unprecedented improvement in material well-being in certain parts of the world, namely the colonizer nations
Compare a per capita GDP ranking of European countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...
With a ranking of the largest empires:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
The top 10 per capita wealthiest countries in Europe, from Wikipedia, are: Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, San Marino, Iceland, Belgium, Austria.
The top 10 largest European colonial empires, based on my skim, belonged to: Britain, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium.
There's just not much of a relationship.
One way to gain an intuition for the extent of the change is to consider population sizes. India in 1600 had about a tenth of its present population. To have a population so much larger, agricultural productivity in India, as well as in the rest of the world, had to increase a great deal in the intervening years.
Another way is to consider the spread of various conveniencies of life -- refrigerators, motor bikes, microwaves, automobiles -- and affordances they enable. Relatively few people in Bangladesh own motor vehicles, but many of them find work in commercial enterprises that are only possible because of the way that commercial trucks open up the interior to world markets. Something like 12% of the world's population has cars today, and that number is steadily increasing. I am not totally certain of this figure, but I believe about two thirds of households in the world have refrigerators.
The benefits of modernization are spread very unevenly amongst the world's peoples today (and we must acknowledge that another example I offered, of the Pax Romana, conferred many advantages specifically to the Romans) but it is hard to argue that there has not been a tremendous benefit worldwide as a result of changes brought about mostly by colonial powers over the last 400 years or so. The thing to consider is not what life in Bangladesh is like, relative to life in the Denmark (or the UK, &c), but what life in Bangladesh was like 400 years ago.
The Europeans do not have it as good as they do -- and, more generally, the world is not so much better off materially -- as a result of simply transferring well-being from one place to another. There were no automobiles, refrigerators, &c, to steal from other countries 400 years. The path to modernity involved real changes in human productivity that allowed for a genuine net benefit.
Can you identify some of the most significant negative consequences of colonization that remain today? Things that wouldn't have happened if those people had engaged in global trade themselves while still being self-governing. As I understood it, the legacies were mostly good - especially government institutions and united nationhood instead of separate enemy tribes.
Yes, colonialism was not profitable. They did it because we hadn't invented modernity yet so we didn't know how to be profitable.
One reason "Britain" (the UK) exists is that Scotland tried to get into colonialism, bankrupted themselves, and had to sell themselves to England.
Generally speaking, getting a lot of resources is actually bad for your economy because it outstrips your ability to develop value-added businesses and institutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
> Compare a per capita GDP ranking of European countries:
You're arguing with a Maoist (or someone who's been listening to them.) One thing about these people is that they believe Finland and Ireland are colonizers, because they just think all European countries are the same.
FWIW, Mao had some good ideas, and some crazy ones. Like most historical figures, really, but even then I wouldn't take being called a Maoist an insult. That said, no proper leftist of any stripe would call Ireland a colonizer nation. They may have attempted it, but the subsequent ratfucking on the part of Great Britain ever since then and their continued existence inside the geopolitical abusive relationship that is the United Kingdom brings them far closer, ethically, to the Congo than to Britain. Lest we forget fun times like the Great Famine, or as the Irish call it, "that time Britain took all the fucking food." Or, more accurately the landlords did, the handling of which is one of Mao's better ideas.
It's a rich nation with a welfare state and universal healthcare.
This is an issue for anyone whose philosophy says that all rich countries got that way by stealing their wealth from the third world.